I was researching bit width / sample rates and found the following:

http://mixonline.com/recording/mixing/audio_emperors_new_sampling/

This article describes tests run by Brad Mayer and David Moran that were reported in the September AES Journal titled "Audibility of a CD Standard A/D/A Loop Inserted Into High Resolution Audio Playback".

Don't throw your CDs away yet. They are better than some think.

Don

Honk if you love Horns

Is the cd good enough?  Depends.  Are your ears tin enough?

oldtimer:

Is the cd good enough? 

YUP, Is for Me ..............

 

How many times have we done this?  Nonetheless, the answer has never been clear.  This is a dialectic in progress and more data presents itself with every iteration, so... 

The question is: WHICH CD? 

Until I'd posted some of my 16/44.1 stuff and recieved the reviews of my peers (and superior ears) I would not be so bold to say this, but, while a wider frequency response and 24 bits would undoubtably improve things, the problem appears to be with the engineering, not the spec. I was just listening to a 24/88.2 chamber music recording I made and really thinking about things.  It was open, airy, and I could easily close my eyes and be back in the magnificent acoustics of Annunciation again.  So I went to a 16/44.1 made in the same space.  Difference?  Yes.  Vast? No. 

It appears that with a few exceptions, the majority of release CD's are crap.  From my own experience making them, I do not really understand what these people do to drain the life out of the music, but they seem to be very expert at it.  I've decided I am an idiot savant.  I am not prepared to explain to anyone how I get the results that my peers find pretty exceptional, as I've no idea myself.  It seems stupidly simple.  I just put the mikes where my ears want to be and turn on the machine.  Duh...  

Mark Deneen has made a great point in another thread about how wide frequency response amplifiers make an audible difference even though this response is totally out in the utterly inaudible range.  This explains WHAT makes a difference, it still doesn't explain WHY.  

I hear this...but nonetheless some of my Redbook spec recordings outshine the majority of LP's in my collection...which has some good ones.  The high res stuff is even better than that.  

There is no question that the Redbook spec is outdated and unneccessarily limited.  OTOH, it is quite capable of reproducing good music in the right hands.

I am still learning, but that is what I know as of this moment.

Dave 

 Seems like for more years than I can count, there has been a steady stream of "there is no difference" studies all with the leaden weight of rigorous science, impeccable statistics and double blind authority. First, there was no difference in speakers, then amps, then  CD players, then wire, then  sample rates and so on. If you pile all these studies up, there is simply no difference in ANYTHING. Anyone having more than a $29 radio has grossly wasted money, and decieved themselves into foolishness. 

Ahhh well, in spite of the last 40 years of "there is no difference in anything" - it seems the people aren't buying it. Maybe they just enjoy spending the money, or maybe there is really something wrong with the tests? I am beginning to be very suspicious about the "no difference" motivation. Perhaps we'll find out someday that all this science was bogus and paid for by some huge corporation with lots to gain if there is "no difference."

Until then, viva la difference! 

I just got back in town from a trip to the New Orleans area to get warranty work done on my nearly new CD player. After eating lunch I stopped by the only high end audio shop in our area to see what was new. I spoke with the owner, a fellow who has been in the audio business for 30 years to get his take on hi-res audio formats. His opinion is that he doesn't expect SACD or DVD-A to be around 5 years from now. He said that his own listening tests indicate that a properly recorded and mastered Redbook CD is nearly as good as any hi-res format that he has heard. In a listening session he demonstrated to me an audiophile remastered disc that I had a normal copy of. The sound was amazing on a very small loudspeaker system ( Spendor) driven by about $35K worth of Audio Research tube gear fed by an Esoteric Audio CD transport. Some of the best sound I have heard.

Until I got home and played the remastered disc that I bought there on my system. I have never heard my system sound so good. Compared to the original commercial disc the audiophile remastered copy sounded like FM compared to AM radio. Much clearer, much fuller, sharper transients, Night and day difference. And all I am using for a CD player is a $50 DVD player!

Many CDs these days seem to sound rather bad to me. The producers push the engineers to make the disc as loud as possible with little apparent regard to the musical content that is being damaged. The 90+ dB dynamic range of the format isn't being used. The dynamics are all compressed into the top 30 dB or so and the music seems squashed and lifeless.

Want to up the performance of your system for $14? Buy better software, you'll be amazed at the difference.

Don

Honk if you love Horns

>His opinion is that he doesn't expect SACD or DVD-A to be around 5 years from now.

He is likely correct but his reasoning is flawed.  Having mastered at resolutions up to 24/192 and compared, I can tell you without question that these 58 year old ears do not have to strain to tell the difference.  Now, I rather suspect that 99% of people cannot...but the point is, with space virtually a non-issue from now on, why limit our bandwidth?  I can guarantee you this...a LOT of those who say that cannot tell the difference will gravitate towards higher res but not know why. 

I believe companies like OPPO will develop universal players.  The technology is here, and is not expensive.  It is my belief that in 5 years we'll see a resurgence of high end digital recording using a variety of resolutions and channels once we are free of the imposed format restrictions of CD, SACD, DVD-A, etc.

Time will tell.  I am going to be working towards this goal with my own R&D on unversal format capable music servers. 

Dave

Don Richard:

 The dynamics are all compressed into the top 30 dB or so and the music seems squashed and lifeless.

 

Don

Don't I wish it were 30dB! Probably more like 6dB to 10dB on most rock and pop releases. 30dB actually would sound decent - about as good as early LPs. 

Mallette:

>His opinion is that he doesn't expect SACD or DVD-A to be around 5 years from now.

He is likely correct but his reasoning is flawed.  Having mastered at resolutions up to 24/192 and compared, I can tell you without question that these 58 year old ears do not have to strain to tell the difference.  Now, I rather suspect that 99% of people cannot...but the point is, with space virtually a non-issue from now on, why limit our bandwidth?  I can guarantee you this...a LOT of those who say that cannot tell the difference will gravitate towards higher res but not know why. 

I believe companies like OPPO will develop universal players.  The technology is here, and is not expensive.  It is my belief that in 5 years we'll see a resurgence of high end digital recording using a variety of resolutions and channels once we are free of the imposed format restrictions of CD, SACD, DVD-A, etc.

Time will tell.  I am going to be working towards this goal with my own R&D on unversal format capable music servers. 

Dave

 

I wonder how Internet distribution and common digital recording will play into it? Just assuming that the old record label model goes away, and assuming chips are cheap to playback at any resolution you want, and access to digital recording is easy, maybe there will develop an actual "art movement" for music where all kinds of experimental HiDef modes are made available? I mean, who needs Redbook or SACD or DVDA? 

Mallette: "I've decided I am an idiot savant. " Even in the reel to reel analog tape days (1970s), several recordings my friends and I made of live sources seemed better than commercial Lps, and even better than prerecorded reel to reel tapes. We used Crown, Revox, and Ampex recorders, with mics like U47s, and carefully placed RCA 77 ribbons (and others). We did exactly what it sounds like you do -- placed the mikes where our ears wanted to be, after listening quite a while. We made orchestral, solo, and small group recordings -- only a very few Rock (demo) recordings, but they were good, as well. We visited several studios (in a college class "Discover Your Ears") and asked the enginners to comment on this. There were several answers, including that the producers/corps insisted on very loud recordings with constricted dynamics, sometimes using limiters or overall compression, but the only frequent answer was "We usually don't have enough time for painstaking setup and experimentation, except with a few famous bands." Our sound professor (who was an old mixer and professional recordist himself) said, "You don't have enough time to employ the FM principle of mic placement?" He got a twinkle-eyed "Yes" from one enginneer. In this case "FM" means "Fu**ing Magic."

>"We usually don't have enough time for painstaking setup and experimentation, except with a few famous bands." Our sound professor (who was an old mixer and professional recordist himself) said, "You don't have enough time to employ the FM principle of mic placement?" He got a twinkle-eyed "Yes" from one enginneer. In this case "FM" means "Fu**ing Magic."

I can relate to this great story.  I spend an average of 5 minutes placing mikes.  I just sort of listen to the space.  It tells me where my ears want to be.  I do not understand "painstaking setup and experimentation."  I am glad these people are NOT surgeons.  And, as we all know, even with "famous bands" they do not seem to get it right very often.

Dave

The one almost universal failure in recording (to my ears), whether auditioned on CD. SACD, Vinyl, DVD, multitrack magnetic film, or whatever, and whether it is because of poor mic placement or some other problem, is the sound of massed strings. I have almost never heard a recording that captures the warm, gutty, ultra complex, exciting sound of massed violins, in particular. Recordists seem to have better luck with the other string instruments. Does anyone know of a great and warm recording of massed violins I could listen to?

 Gary,

Do you mean that the strings all seem mushed together? This is a problem that I find with many organ recordings... there is too much reverberant field and it all muddles together. I think it is hard to get the string sound, a little more close mic'd sound on group violins. To me it provides the excitement and dynamics of strings.

Assume you mean orchestral works. I'll go through some of my recordings and see what I can come up with. 

Bruce 

Garyrc:

Does anyone know of a great and warm recording of massed violins I could listen to?

This answer may not be very good, but it'll be unexpected:  a DVD I'm using in my classical "class" at the Pilgrimage -- Dvorak's New World symphony by the Berlin Philharmonic, Euroarts 2056048.  (I'm watching & listening to it on my TV system, not the 2-channel, on a Sony DVD player, Arcam integrated amp, and Polk L7si speaks.)  I think there's good subtlety and clarity from the violins.  The only weak point is the deep string bass chord at the end of the slow movement (that could be the Polks).

I agree with you, strings are the hardest for digital and CDs to reproduce.  I searched long and hard for a CD player that could make Bach's cello sonatas sound like like they were played on a real cello and not on an edgy, grainy, dried-up facsimile.  I think a solo cello is actually as hard for digital as massed violins.  OTOH, the weakest part of the recent Met Opera hi-def TV taped re-broadcast of Hansel and Gretel was the massed violins, just as you said.

Bruce,

My sense (or projection) of what Gary meant was an opaque sound lacking detail, from, say, a string section of a large orchestra.  At least that's where I'd anticipate hearing that quality.  Unlike recordings of very small chamber orchestras, which can be closely mic'd as you suggest.  Old Mercury recordings of the 1950s and 60s had very close mic'ing of violins, but it wasn't always pleasant.